Weekly Round Up: LeBron James, George Miller, Pirates

So, Halloween. Not the holiday, the movie. No, not the 1979 John Carpenter movie. And no, not that Rob Zombie one either (shhh, that one doesn’t exist). No, the other one. Halloween II. But not Halloween II the original sequel, and not the one that’s a sequel to the Rob Zombie one either (shhh, that one still doesn’t exist). No, Halloween 2018, which is sort of Halloween II, but also a reboot, kind of, but mainly a straight sequel. That’s the one we’re talking about. Got it? Okay.

So, Halloween. It’s done pretty well at the box office, if anyone is that surprised (personally I thought it was only okay, but whatever). Perhaps unsurprisingly, given its success, we’ve seen movement on another slasher movie reboot, one for another slasher icon.

Yeah, so it looks like we could be seeing a return to Camp Crystal Lake fairly soon. Now, all the news is purely speculative at this point, but the rumour mill started turning when LeBron James (I know this is super random, it’s a random piece of news, but this is the world we live in now, it’s unpredictable, what you gonna do?), basketball star, posted an image of himself wearing Jason Voorhees iconic hockey mask.

The premise is being kept tightly underwraps, but we do know that Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba have both signed on to star, and that the movie promises to be “unlike anything the filmmaker has done before”, which, given Miller’s filmography includes movies as varied as Mad Max, The Witches of Eastwick and… Babe, is a rather tantalising prospect.

Maybe he’s actually working on the Friday the 13th reboot, but it’s actually a direct sequel to Jason X, the one in space, because we all know that movie is secretly awesome. Right? Right…? I’m sure Blumhouse would be down for it, Blumhouse seem determined to become the home of horror across the Atlantic, they’re constantly after more content.

Netflix, meanwhile, have also been busy collecting content. News broke this week that they will be producing Guillermo Del Toro’s new Pinocchio movie, which is set to be a stop motion animation musical made in conjunction with The Jim Henson Company, based in Italy in the 1930s under the fascist rule of Benito Mussolini. If that sounds oddly un-Pinocchio, just remember fascist rule is all the rage these days (yes, I made it political! Donald Trump sucks).

For some reason Disney have decided that they’re not going to just let things die anymore, and instead of kicking the rotting carcass that is the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise to the curb like any good person would, they’re actually going to… ugh… REBOOT!!!

Alex Secker is a writer/director/editor. His debut feature film, the micro-budget thriller Follow the Crows, won Best Independent Film at the Global Film Festival Awards, while his stage-play, The Door, won the People’s Choice Award at the 2017 Swinge Festival.